In one sentence: "tokenized stocks" and "tokenized equities" are, in practice, two names for the same thing - blockchain tokens tied to shares of a listed company or fund - while "real-world assets" (RWAs) is the wider umbrella for any off-chain asset represented on a blockchain, from Treasury funds to gold to mortgage loans. The distinction that actually matters is not which name a product uses. It is what the token gives the holder: the share itself, a claim on a share someone else holds, or only exposure to its price.
In 2026 that question got concrete answers. This page sorts what actually shipped into the structures that matter, using dated launches from MoonWire's coverage, and ends with a checklist.
The short version
| Term | What it usually refers to | What the holder has | Examples from our coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tokenized stock / tokenized equity | A token tied one-to-one to a listed share or ETF | Depends on the structure - see below | Coinbase, Robinhood Chain, Ondo, Binance bStocks, xStocks, Securitize |
| Tokenized fund share class | A regulated fund issuing one of its share classes on a blockchain | A fund share | BlackRock, Aviva Investors |
| Equity perps, swaps and options | Derivatives on stock prices, offered by crypto venues | A contract, not a token of the share | Coinbase US 500 perp, Ripple Prime swaps, Binance Stock Options |
| RWA | The umbrella for all of the above and more | Varies by asset | Treasury funds, tokenized gold, mortgage loans |
1. Tokenized stocks: three structures under one name
A share held by a custodian, a token issued against it. In this structure a firm other than the company behind the stock backs each token with a real share. Coinbase launched tokenized US stocks "backed 1:1", with holders able to receive dividends [1], part of the product push in our June 17 market pulse. Ondo Finance launched tokenized versions of BlackRock's IVV ETF and Micron shares using a third-party US custodial model, with the underlying securities staying in the traditional US custody chain [2]. Ondo also said 24/7 minting and redemption for its tokenized stocks and ETFs had gone live on Ethereum and BNB Chain [3]. The issuers now compete on scale, whatever their structure: Binance's bStocks reached $100M in assets under management on the day of our tokenization milestone brief [3] and $500M within seven weeks of launch, as our July 30 market pulse recorded [4]. By mid-August, per Token Terminal figures carried by Cointelegraph, bStocks had overtaken xStocks as the second-largest tokenized stock issuer at $610.6M, with Ondo leading at roughly $927M [5].
A broker issuing on its own chain. Robinhood launched the public mainnet of Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum layer-2 [6], and rolled out its tokenized stocks platform on it [7] (our brief); The Block reported the launch alongside 24/7 tokenized stocks and perpetuals [8]. What a holder of those tokens has was spelled out by analyst Lark Davis in a video: ERC-20 tokens "issued out of Jersey" and backed one-to-one by shares held with a US custodian, where "you do not own the share. You own a tokenized debt claim on it. No voting rights, no legal ownership" - with minting and redemption limited to authorized participants [9]. That is his description rather than a company disclosure, and it carries a consequence he walks through: when US markets close for the weekend, authorized participants cannot buy real shares to mint new tokens, while trading on the chain continues [9]. Our 2026-09-03 market pulse followed one episode on that chain.
The company itself issuing on-chain. The third structure removes the intermediary. Securitize and Computershare announced a partnership to let US-listed companies issue equity shares on-chain in tokenized form [10]. Securitize then put its own stock on-chain: The Block reported that it debuted real SECZ shares on Solana and Avalanche alongside its NYSE listing [11], after completing its IPO under that ticker [12].
All three are called tokenized stocks. Only the third is the company's own share issued in token form; the first two are tokens that point at a share somebody else holds.
2. Why "what the token gives you" is the real question
The differences showed up in 2026 as votes, classification, access and supply.
Votes. Kraken's parent Payward said that through a collaboration with Broadridge, eligible xStocks holders will be able to submit proxy voting preferences for the shares underlying their tokens, "after previously having no say in how those shares were voted" [13]. Ondo announced a Broadridge partnership to bring proxy voting to its tokenized stocks and ETFs in April [14]. In both cases the vote reached the token holder through an arrangement with an outside firm, not because the token carried it on its own.
Classification. South Korea's finance ministry said tokenized stocks are securities, not crypto assets [15]. In the US, the SEC delayed a tokenized-asset exemption amid concerns over third-party tokens, according to Bloomberg Law as reported by The Block [16] - third-party tokens being the structure where the token issuer is not the company behind the share.
Access. Ondo's broker-dealer subsidiary Oasis Pro Markets received SEC and FINRA authorization to offer tokenized equities and funds to US investors [17], a clearance our July 24 market pulse placed alongside a stalled market-structure bill.
Supply. A token is only as available as the share behind it. Bybit, Binance and Bitget cancelled tokenized SpaceX IPO allocations after a share shortage [18]. Tokenized "PreStocks" for Anthropic and OpenAI on Solana plunged after warnings about unauthorized equity transfers [19].
3. Tokenized funds: where the incumbents went
Here a fund manager issues a share class of a regulated fund on a blockchain, so the token is the fund share.
- BlackRock launched tokenized share classes for select European money market funds across its $311 billion Institutional Cash Series platform, built on Ethereum with Kinexys by JPMorgan, in euro, sterling and US dollar funds [20].
- Aviva Investors launched a Central Bank of Ireland-approved tokenized share class of its US Dollar Liquidity Fund on the XRP Ledger [21].
- Circle named 11 founding validators for its Arc blockchain, with BlackRock planning to run its BUIDL platform on Arc and Circle and DTCC set to begin tokenizing DTC-custodied assets on the network in the second half of 2027 [22]. (Our coverage.)
- The market's own settlement plumbing started trials: per a WSJ report carried by The Block, DTCC conducted its first limited production trades of tokenized stocks and Treasurys, with nearly 40 firms involved and JPMorgan tokenizing part of its QQQ holdings [23].
4. Stock exposure that is not a tokenized stock
A separate run of launches in late summer gave crypto-venue customers exposure to equities without any token of a share at all. These are derivatives: a contract that references a price.
- Coinbase's US 500 perpetual future crossed $100M in 24-hour volume a week after launch, pitched as "one contract, exposure to the top 500 US companies," with commissions waived on stock index perps through January 31, 2027 [24].
- Binance introduced Binance Stock Options to trade US stock and ETF options "with physical settlement" [25].
- Ripple Prime introduced a Delta One business offering total return swaps across US-listed equities, indices and digital assets - "Single counterparty. Cross-margined. Structurally aligned. 24/7" [26].
- Earlier, Coinbase said pre-IPO perpetuals for Anthropic and OpenAI were coming, after SpaceX as the first [27].
Our week in review for 2026-09-01 covered these launches together. They are contracts rather than tokens of a share - with the caveat that Binance describes its options as physically settled [25], so what changes hands at expiry is set by that contract's terms.
This is also where headline "RWA" numbers get large. A post CZ shared cited CoinDesk research putting May's centralized-exchange RWA perpetual volume at a record $211 billion, with Binance at 55.7% [28], and Hyperliquid's real-world-asset open interest reached a record $3.6 billion [29]. Those are derivatives referencing real-world prices, not tokenized assets.
5. RWAs: the umbrella, and why its numbers disagree
"Real-world assets" covers every category above plus assets that are neither stocks nor funds. In the same stretch of 2026 our coverage recorded Paxos's PAX Gold (PAXG) going live on Solana [3], Black Lake and Nuva Labs tokenizing $25 million in mortgage loans on Provenance [30], and New York Life making its first tokenized move with Centrifuge on a high-yield corporate bond strategy [31].
CoinGecko put tokenized real-world assets at $19.3 billion by the first quarter of 2026, reporting RWA perpetuals volume of $524.8 billion in the same release [32]. Bernstein, as reported by The Block, put tokenized RWA market cap above $51 billion in June [33], with The Block framing it around an industry still racing to define an equity tokenization model. The derivatives line in CoinGecko's release was more than 27 times its tokenized-asset figure, which is why a headline total means little until you know whether it counts tokens, fund shares or contract volume.
How to tell what you are looking at
Six questions separate the structures:
- Who issued the token? The company behind the share, a broker, an exchange, or another third party?
- What backs it? A share held by a named custodian, a fund share, or nothing - a derivative that references a price?
- Which rights pass through? Dividends and votes arrive only when the arrangement provides them.
- Who can create and redeem tokens, and when? Whether minting runs around the clock or only when the underlying market is open affects how closely the token can track the share.
- Where is it offered, and how is it classified there?
- For any market-size number, what is being counted? Tokens, fund shares, or derivatives volume.
Glossary
- Tokenized stock / tokenized equity - a token tied to a listed share or ETF; the terms are used interchangeably.
- Backed token - a token issued against a real share held in custody, by a firm other than the company behind the share.
- Issuer-native tokenized share - a share the company itself issues or records on a blockchain.
- Tokenized share class - a class of a regulated fund's shares issued on a blockchain.
- Authorized participant - a firm permitted to create and redeem tokens against the underlying asset.
- Equity perp / total return swap - derivatives that pay according to a stock or index price without the holder owning it.
- RWA (real-world asset) - any off-chain asset represented on a blockchain.
Every launch on this page is cited to a dated item in MoonWire's corpus or linked to our coverage of it. These are descriptive records of what was announced or reported on the date shown. Nothing here is investment advice, and none of it is a recommendation to transact in any asset.
